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29/10/2012

I had one of those great weekends where you do lots and yet
still feel like it was lovely and relaxing at the same time. On Saturday I
popped into town, then went out for the autumn walk I’d been dreaming about
whilst in the office all week. It was freezing, but the leaves and sunshine
more than made up for it; autumn really is my favourite season. This was
followed by an evening in the pub with friends, two bottles of rekorderlig
later and I woke up with a bit of a hangover – what a lightweight! Sunday was
also pretty perfect (after some not so perfect cleaning) I settled down with my
favourite film, some knitting and my new favourite snack bananas and nutella.
It’s sort of one of my five a day, right? And then headed over to the boyfriend’s
for a roast dinner. It’s not often I accomplish all that in a weekend. The only
thing missing was a trip to see James Bond which has been rescheduled to
tomorrow evening after we couldn't book seats for any showing, anywhere!

24/10/2012

It’s been grey, misty and miserable here for several days
now and I’m longing for some sunshine to appear. I’ve got all my fingers crossed
that it turns up in time for the weekend so I can head out and take some
pictures. I feel I’ve neglected this hobby slightly as crafting has been taking
up a lot of my time, so to encourage a few more trips out with my camera I
thought I’d start a new feature – picture postcard. A weekly snap of somewhere
I’ve been, something inspiring, or as in this case, something I want to be
doing - enjoying the autumn sunshine, wrapped up in warm clothes and walking
through crunchy leaves! This picture, taken on a walk last year, perfectly illustrates
where I want to be this weekend and will hopefully help get me through the rest
of the week... is it really only Wednesday?!

21/10/2012

This afternoon I’ve been making these cute lavender bags. They’re
such an easy thing to make and are so small they could be
quickly hand stitched if you’re not a fan of sewing machines. They also make
great presents, yes I’m already thinking about Christmas, ordered first present for the boyfriend this morning! Anyway, all you need to do
is cut some squares out of fabric, pin together and sew around three edges,
then turn the right way out, fill with dried lavender and sew closed. You can
make different shapes, or embellish them with ribbons or more fabric, but as
these were just a practise run I kept things simple.

The lavender was picked from our garden a few weeks ago and
left to dry out in the garage, but you can also buy pre-dried stuff online.
They smell lovely and apparently also keep clothes moths away, all for less
than an hours work!

How have you been spending your Sunday?

Also, the lack of step by step photos is because my camera is otherwise engaged as I’m attempting some time-lapse photography (more on that soon). But this is such an easy make, pictures aren't really needed!

14/10/2012

Whilst battling my cold this week I thought I’d keep busy with a simple craft project. Shrink plastic is such an easy way to make jewellery; I
experimented with it earlier this year and made a butterfly necklace, click
here for the how to. So I thought that now would be the perfect time of year to make a
deer necklace (I love anything with deer/stag on).

Unfortunately, the design I
chose didn’t quite work – it was really difficult to get the thin legs to lie
flat and not twist as the plastic shrank. Deer number one lost his hind legs as
I tried to force them back into the right shape. As you can see the second one
turned out much better but had an interesting dent in him, no idea where that
came from! It took a while for me to decide the best thing to do was fill it
with a bead.

After much deliberation I went for an amber coloured bead, it is autumn
after all, glued it into place and attached a jump ring and necklace chain. Easy!
He’s a lovely little addition to my autumn/winter wardrobe.

09/10/2012

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that etsy is one of my
favourite sites and as autumn is also one of my favourite seasons, I thought I’d
show you a few great etsy finds perfect for the coming season.

Obviously, I had to start with a chunky knit and despite
being told previously that I can’t pull off mustard yellow with my blonde hair and
pale skin, I shall lust after this gorgeous scarf from The SimpleBoxCar all the same.

A cute CuteAbility acorn and oak leaf necklace, would it be too much to
wear it with my squirrel print shirt?

Bluebirdchic - turning your camera into a fashion accessory,
love the idea AND the autumn colours.

03/10/2012

Good news – it’s nearly national chocolate week! I don’t usually go in
for ‘national weeks’ seeing as we have them for pretty much everything
nowadays, but if you’re going to buy into any of them it may as well be the
chocolate one, eh? So I’ve decided it’s the perfect excuse (not that really I
need one) to eat a bit more chocolate, it’s also the perfect excuse to
try out a new recipe... gooey triple chocolate and pecan cookies. Now, I’m sure
you’ve already got a recipe for triple chocolate cookies, but I’ve had so many
compliments on this one that they’re really worth a go. As there’s not much
flour and no butter/margarine in the recipe they almost end up a bit meringue like,
totally delicious!